Francis Katabazi; The Government Might Be Aiming To Weaken Private ...

Government Might Be Aiming To Weaken Private Schools By Increasing Science Teacher’s Salaries – Hon Francis Katabazi

Posted by: Eninu William in Uganda news June 20, 2022

Kalungu East member of Parliament Hon Francis Katabazi Katongole has come out to reveal his thoughts on government’s recent increase of science teachers’ salaries countrywide.

According to Katabazi, this move might be aimed at weakening private schools.

This is because when they increase salaries of government teachers, those in private schools too will demand for the same. And with some schools with few resources, they might fail at this resulting into failure to operate.

“This might be a move to weaken private schools. Suppose you increase government teachers money; those in private schools will also ask for a raise,” Hon Katabazi said.

Katabazi also expressed his support towards demonstrations by Arts teachers. These have been protesting for about a week expressing their dissatisfaction with the government for what they termed as unequal pay.

This is after government announced an increase in the salaries of science teachers.

According to Katabazi, the constitution talks about equality, so, there is no reason why government should increase one section and ignore another. This is because they do the same job.

“I support the Arts teachers’ demonstrations. They have a right because our constitution talks about equality. Why would Science teachers receive more money than Arts teachers, yet they are all teachers?” Hon. Francis Katabazi said.

The Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) last week declared countrywide sit-at-home teachers strike. And this was termed as “All Teachers Matter’ as they advocated equality in payment and harmonization of teachers.

In the recent budget, government increased the payment of science teachers by approximately 300 percent.

This increment saw graduate science and grade V teachers’ salary raise to four million and 3 million Shillings. This is up from 1.1 million and 796,000 Shillings respectively.

UNATU then scheduled a meeting with the Minister of Education and Sports Janet Kataha Museveni which was later called off. On Saturday, President Museveni met with UNATU officials and Cabinet Ministers among other government officials.

Despite countless hours of negotiations, UNATU stood its ground and vowed not to suspend the strikes. This is unless government address their demands.

The Independent newspaper said that the proposal by UNATU in terms of payment is as follows, “According to said draft, secondary school headteachers should receive shillings 10 million, and primary school headteachers shillings 4.5 million. UNATU is also pushing the government to pay shillings 4.8 million to graduate science teachers and shillings 4.5 million to those teaching arts and humanities. They are also advocating for a shillings 1.35 million minimum wage for primary school teachers.”

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